Security
researcher Brian Wallace was on the trail of hackers who had snatched a
California university’s housing files when he stumbled into a larger nightmare:
Cyber attackers had opened a pathway into the networks running the United States
power grid. Digital clues pointed to Iranian hackers. And Wallace found that
they had already taken passwords, as well as engineering drawings of dozens of
power plants, at least one with the title “Mission Critical.” The drawings were
so detailed that experts say skilled attackers could have used them, along with
other tools and malicious code, to knock out electricity flowing to millions of
homes. Wallace was astonished. But this breach was not unique. About a dozen times in the last decade, sophisticated foreign
hackers have gained enough remote access to control the operations networks
that keep the lights on, according to top experts who spoke only on condition
of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter.
The
public almost never learns the details about these types of attacks — they’re
rarer but also more intricate and potentially dangerous than data theft.
Information about the government’s response to these hacks is often protected
and sometimes classified; many are never even reported to the government. These
intrusions have not caused the kind of cascading blackouts that are feared by
the intelligence community. But so many attackers have stowed away in the
systems that run the US electric grid that experts say they likely have the
capability to strike at will. And that’s what worries Wallace and other
cyber security experts most. “If the geopolitical situation changes and Iran
wants to target these facilities, if they have this kind of information it will
make it a lot easier,” said Robert M. Lee, a former US Air Force cyber warfare
operations officer. “It will also help them stay quiet and stealthy inside.” Watch the videos below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMipzVz5064
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